


Tactics of the Shrewdest Minds

by Meatball42



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Leverage, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sherlock (TV), Supernatural, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Torchwood
Genre: 5 Times, 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, BAMF Phil Coulson, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Episode: s02e12 Fragments, Fury's Big Week, Gen, Happy Ending, Having Faith, Humor, Jealous Clint Barton, Magic, Manipulation, Memory Alteration, Mostly Gen, Nick Fury Trolls, Phil Coulson & Nick Fury Friendship, Post-Iron Man 1, Recruitment, SHIELD Family, Trust Issues, for Jesse :), for Sherlock, for Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-15 12:00:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5784577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Phil Coulson hired someone for SHIELD, and one time he didn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Toshiko Sato

Toshiko's cell is opened twice a day, every day. The first time is around noon, when she is taken to the toilets, then brought to the large room with the other prisoners for an hours of walking, silently, in circles, again and again. Then she is brought back to her cell. The door is opened again in the evening, and she is allowed to use the toilet again, and every other day she gets to use the shower. Then she is brought back to her cell.

The food rotates every other day, and the fruit switches each week. The guards rotate, too, on for two weeks, then off for two weeks. Toshiko watches new ones join the rotation, then leave after a year or so.

Toshiko's cell never changes.

For the first few months, Toshiko tried to stay optimistic. She continued her projects from work in her head, improved them, even, came up with new ones. She worked on that novel, closing her eyes and moving her hands over her imaginary laptop. Toshiko wondered where her mother was, her brother, her boyfriend, wondered if any of them had been told she was imprisoned, or dead.

After a year, she gave up hoping. No one was looking for her, no one could save her. This was her life from now on, and the most it would ever change would be pineapple, maybe, when it came in season.

And then the door to her cell opened mid-morning.

It was unusual, but Toshiko stood, as she was supposed to do when the guards came for her. Instead of the sterile UNIT uniforms, however, the person behind the door wore a well-fitted suit. Toshiko squinted, but... she didn't know what to make of him.

"Doctor Sato," the man said, his voice confident but non-threatening. "Would you come with me?"

Toshiko nodded hesitantly. Whoever he is, however polite he may sound, he's UNIT. Even if this weren't the most interesting thing to happen to her in nearly two years, he could make her do most anything he wanted.

The man just smiles placidly and waves Toshiko before him. To her surprise, there are no guards waiting in the corridor to put on her walking chains, or to escort them through the facility. Toshiko walks at the measured pace the guards always set for them nevertheless, and the man doesn't comment or try to speed them up.

When they reach a door just beyond the cell level, he said "Here we are," and Toshiko waits as he opened the door, then steps through at his gesture.

It’s an unexpectedly wide room, nearly as wide as the exercise room, but this one has a table with a chair on each side, and sunlight. Toshiko tries not to stare at it; she sees it most days, when they walk, but...

After a few minutes, the man clears his throat. "Doctor Sato."

"Sorry," Toshiko croaks, and tries to hide her blush by sitting across from the man. When was the last time she spoke? She swallows a few times, hoping that will help.

"Doctor Sato, my name is Phil Coulson. I'm an agent with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division."

"SHIELD?" Toshiko asks.

The man smiles. It’s a bland smile, but Toshiko knows-- knew-- what a paper pusher looks like, and what the real movers and shakers at the Ministry of Defense looked like. This man, whoever he is, he isn't just an office man. "You've heard of us, I take it?"

"Once or twice," Toshiko stutters. "Am I... in trouble with you, too?"

"Actually, Doctor," Coulson says, "we'd like to extend an offer of employment. SHIELD deals with a wide variety of unusual situations. We could use a woman with your aptitude and creativity."

Toshiko stares. "You... want me to make weapons," she says slowly.

Coulson gives a small shrug. "If you're not comfortable with that, you could work on other projects. SHIELD believes in taking care of our operatives, Doctor Sato. We know that bright minds do their best work when they are comfortable and positively motivated."

Toshiko shakes her head in disbelief. "Am I hallucinating?" she murmurs.

Coulson's expression softens from its formal lines. "I understand this may come as a shock. I'm sorry we couldn’t reach you sooner. There was a fair amount of inter-agency red tape involved in securing your release."

"My release?" Toshiko nearly squeaks.

"Into our custody. You'll receive the standard SHIELD contract for hires with outstanding criminal records or sentences: ten years of mandatory service, with full pay and benefits, and then, usually, an offer for a regular job contract. It often comes with a raise," he adds, actually sounding like he thought that would be of import to her at the moment.

Toshiko opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.

Coulson inclines his head slightly. “I understand if you need time to think about it. Not that you have any better options at the moment…” he lifts his hands as if to say ‘what can you do?’

Her mind is racing. Or at least, it’s racing compared to the speed it has slowed down to in the endless monotony of prison, so she’s probably thinking at anyone else’s normal thinking speed. It’s like a taste of sugar after too long without.

SHIELD is… even to the Ministry of Defence, SHIELD was shady. They communicated, but rarely partnered, they shared intel but never how they got it. Toshiko didn’t know too much about them, only that she ought to be wary. Phil Coulson is a good actor, but even with her instincts dulled Toshiko can tell he’s hiding things from her, things she may never get to know.

Not that she has any better options. Or ever will, most likely.

“Thank you,” Toshiko says, dredging up the memory of manners. “I’d like to accept your offer.”

Coulson smiles. It’s not a particularly nice smile, but at least it’s not cruel. Toshiko has seen far too much of that. “I thought you would. Welcome to SHIELD, Doctor.”

 

~~~~~

At the end of their weekly developments conference, Phil sighs in relief, letting his head fall back against the most comfortable chair Nick has in his office. His boss grins at him from across his desk, looking fresh as a daisy despite it being past midnight.

“You look like you could use some good news,” Nick offers gallantly.

“Do I deserve it?” Phil counters, tone laced with self-pity. He drags his tie a bit further down his neck. He’ll fix it before leaving, of course, but in the privacy of Nick’s office, he can reveal his exhaustion.

“Stark was never going to be an easy assignment. And the bodyguard story would have been hard to keep up. I don’t blame you.”

Phil sits up, genuinely warned by Nick’s rare comments. “Alright,” he says in thanks. “Hit me.”

“Sato, the Brit you snuck out of UNIT a few years back? Hill’s promoting her to Deputy Head of R&D. She’ll be responsible for the Programming and Innovation divisions.”

Phil blinks, remembering the shadow of a woman he’d led out of a concrete box in England. He remembers acting nonchalant, so that UNIT wouldn’t see how much SHIELD wanted an operative of Sato’s caliber, and how shocked her wide, dark eyes had looked every second he treated her like a human being.

“That is good news,” he says thoughtfully. “Maybe I should pay her a visit, say congratulations.”

Nick smirks. “Maybe you should recover from Stark first, before you talk to another tech genius.”

Phil drops his head back on the chair and groans.


	2. John Watson

Phil holds in a smirk as he and Nick sit down in the canteen and several agents show the whites of their eyes. It’s always fun to stir up the younger agents, not that they’d ever let it slip that’s what they’re doing.

Nick has no compunctions. He grins at Phil’s hidden appreciation, with teeth. “They’ve gotta learn to expect the unexpected,” he says.

“Yes sir,” Phil replies, digging into his lunch.

“I see your latest find is fitting in,” Nick comments after a while.

Phil follows the innocuous flick of Nick’s finger and discovers John Watson holding court at a few tables across the hall. He’s not even the one talking, just commenting every now and then, but as Phil subtly tracks the body language of the group, he can see how everyone orients toward John when he speaks, and how he prompts laughter easily. “He is,” Phil says with a hint of pride.

“I thought you said he was a hard case.”

“Hard to convince,” Phil answers. “Had to get past the Queen and Country spirit to convince him that SHIELD protects the whole world. It’s a surprisingly difficult sell to a soldier whose country sent him abroad,” he muses.

“Because you were such an easy hire,” Nick says sarcastically.

“I signed the paperwork the day after I met you,” Phil protests.

“And after three months of my recruiters failing to get through that thick skull of yours. Give it up, Phil. Watson’s just a bit more insightful than you were in your younger years.”

“ _ My young _ -” Phil interrupts himself by putting a piece of chicken in his mouth and chewing it deliberately.

Nick laughs aloud, as though he hasn’t just earned himself cold and deathly revenge, and attracts attention from the surrounding agents. Phil sees Watson look over with his table, and gives the new agent a subtle nod. Watson, a man of British tact and respectability, nods back and returns to his conversation.

“Insightful he may be, but he’ll never rise above a level five,” Nick comments once he’s taken a few more bites of his food.

“He’s pretty adaptive, sir, from the reports I read. Smart, quick, good under pressure. Good at taking orders and knowing which ones to ignore.” Phil considers. Nick’s usually good at reading assets; there must be some reason for Nick to discount him. “I wouldn’t have gone after him if I didn’t think he’d do well here.”

“I’m sure he will,” Nick agrees. “But it’s the reason he’s a good soldier that’ll disqualify him from advancement.”

“He’s a good soldier because he’s principled and won’t compromise.”

Nick grins and points a finger at Phil. “Exactly.”


	3. Eliot Spencer

Another day, another success. Phil gives himself a pat on the back mentally and feels like he’s finally made it back to an even keel. After the fiasco that was Tony Stark and Bruce Banner causing simultaneous Code Reds while an alien prince appeared in the middle of nowhere, Captain America’s downed plane was discovered in the Arctic, and the World Security Council tried to hijack the Avengers Initiative, it’s been hard to stay positive.

Romanoff and Barton know they’ve been tapped for the Initiative, but they don’t know the details of that past week's furor, just that their future is in flux. Assets of that caliber, Phil mourns privately, are not generally good at handling uncertainties like this one, which in turn means their support systems (read: Phil) have to do extra work settling them down.

Phil thinks he’s done okay this time, however. In fact, he thinks, gazing out over the Triskelion gym through the observation window above, he may have outdone himself.

The new playmate Phil has snagged for Strike Team Delta has been on SHIELD’s Most Wanted list for a few years; specifically, the private one that also functions as a talent watch. The new hire is one of the top free agents in his field, a certified killer and a certified chef, kind to children and efficient with anyone who gets in his way. And he joined SHIELD as soon as Phil told him they were going to take down Damien Moreau.

Romanoff and Barton are watching-- not that anyone besides Phil would be able to tell-- from the weights area while Probationary Agent Eliot Spencer, formerly a freelance retrieval specialist, trounces agent after highly-trained agent in a no-holds-barred SHIELD hazing ritual within a boxing ring. Around the ring a crowd has gathered, and money is clearly exchanging hands as agents cheer for their friends, or for their new colleague.

Phil spots Maria nearby; obviously she knew this was going to happen and is keeping an eye on proceedings. If she weren’t there, Phil would have to go down himself, but as it is he’s free to watch Strike Team Delta plan Spencer’s downfall.

When the new hire manages to pin Agent Leighton, despite a cut streaming blood down the side of his face, Maria steps in. Phil can’t hear her through the glass, but from Spencer’s modest grin and the cheering that goes up, it looks like she’s declared him the winner. Someone brings Spencer a towel and a bottle of water, both of which the new agent uses as he descends from the ring and releases his long, sweat-dampened hair from its tie.

A few steps away from the locker room and directly below Phil’s window, Spencer’s path is suddenly blocked by the Black Widow. He pulls up short and offers his hand. From this angle, Phil can barely see Romanoff’s expression, but she seems to be cordial; at the very least, Spencer probably wouldn’t be grinning if she weren’t. Phil catches ‘fresh to fight you’ on Spencer’s lips and smiles to himself;  _ that’s _ going to be a match worth watching.

Glancing around the rest of the gym, Phil’s eye is caught by Maria, who’s giving him her best ‘I’m-blaming-you-for-this’ face. He wrinkles his eyebrows at her in a confused fashion. She rolls her eyes and nods to the side, where--

Oh shit.

Barton is looking at the back of Spencer’s head. It seems pretty mild, but that glare usually precedes an arrow flying down the same path.

Phil reexamines the pair of assassins below him. Spencer has stepped closer to Romanoff and his smile is definitely too friendly. Instead of crushing him utterly, as she has any other SHIELD agent besides Barton who ever flirted with her, Romanoff appears to be smiling back.

Phil resists the urge to actually bang his head against the window.

So much for things settling down.


	4. Faith Lehane

It’s one AM and a three-quarter moon is high in the sky. Phil sits on a crate in a shipyard and waits patiently. His contact is an hour late, but he’s sure it’s part of her plan, and he doesn’t mind waiting.

Eventually, she arrives. In tight black pants and a dark denim jacket, Phil can easily pick out a half dozen weapons on her person. She moves with the grace of a born fighter, and the cockiness of one not used to losing. Her hair is long and hanging free, and she watches him like a cat watches a trapped mouse.

“Thought you would be taller,” she calls. She stops in the middle of an intersection between the rows of boxes, making him come to her.

Phil doesn’t mind. Giving in to power plays and waiting for the perfect moment is his usual playbook, and he wants her to be comfortable anyway. For now.

“I thought you would be older,” he admits.

Faith Lehane, renegade hunter of many of SHIELD’s more mysterious creatures of interest, smirks at him, pouty lips pursing. “I’m old enough.” She sticks out a hand imperiously for the file he’s holding. He gives it to her and folds his hands together while she skims it.

When she’s finished-- very quickly; does she have some sort of mental enhancement as well?-- she’s glaring at him, and the anger spilling from her dark eyes is almost enough to make him wish he had back-up.

“Is this some kind of joke?” Faith demands. “You said you had a job for me. A one-off. No offense, but I don’t go in for commitment, or the Daddy type.”

“I have a lot of jobs for you,” Phil tells her. “They just come with some benefits.”

“This is bullshit,” Faith declares, spinning and striding away.

“You’re not curious enough to hear me out?” Phil says mildly.

Faith looks back, eyes narrowed. She turns on her heel, grin sharp like a dagger. “Wow me.” She holds her arms out like she’s inviting him to hit her.

“SHIELD knows you’re at the top of your field. We have no interest in telling you how to do your job. But we do have the resources to identify threats of the sort you normally take on before you even hear about them, and to help you combat them.”

“You wanna be my new Watcher?” Faith says derisively. The jut of her chin is wild, emotional. Phil shakes his head. Careful.

“We want you as a consultant. On a case-by-case basis. You go in alone, get the job done, same as you do now. But with us, you’ll have an organization at your back to supply you and enable you to do what you already do: protect people.”

“I don’t really do taking orders,” she tells him, but her stance has relaxed, her hands no longer twitching toward hidden knives.

“ I can't say you'll never have to,” Phil admits. “But we want you because of your skills, and that includes your insight. We're not in the habit of ignoring the opinion of the man or woman on the ground,” he finishes.

As usual, his pitch has been carefully planned out beforehand, and Phil is the best high-risk recruiter SHIELD has. He can see her thinking about it, and makes his last move.

“I’m not going to ask you to decide tonight. My card is in there,” he indicates the folder she still has in one hand, “along with a preliminary contract. Review it, do your research, think it over. I’ll be glad to hear from you, whether it’s tomorrow or next year.”

Faith is silent. Phil hesitates; she really is younger than he expected.

“SHIELD takes care of its own, Faith,” he says quietly. “We’d take care of you.”

Phil nods goodbye and walks away. He hopes more fervently than usual that he’s made the right call.


	5. Bela Talbot

Phil swipes his identification card at the entrance to the Enclave’s underground holding cells and tries to ignore the snickers of the agent on duty.  Kovács is a retired field agent who’s known Phil for years, which is the only reason he can get away with it. Still: “It’s not funny.”

“What is this, the third time in two months?”  Kovács beams with delight. “I think you’re losing your touch.” His eyes sparkle.

Phil nods, accepting the critique, and enters the interrogation room.

Bela is sitting at the table, tracking bracelet magnetized to its surface, as relaxed as if she were at home on her sofa with a glass of wine. She looks up at Phil with her big pale eyes and pouts. “It wasn’t my fault!”

Phil blinks, honestly taken aback. “You were caught red-handed in restricted files.”

“I’m bored, Agent Coulson!” she says as though it’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. “You promised me excitement if I joined SHIELD.”

“I promised you wouldn’t be in prison,” Phil points out dryly, sitting down opposite her.

Bela sniffs and inspects her manicured nails. “At this rate, prison might be preferable.”

“What are you angling for?” Phil asks, more than used to his latest ‘recruit’ and her wiles.

“I can’t be a field agent, with all these ridiculous rules and requirements you have, and much less an intelligence analyst,” she explains; again, sounding eminently reasonable and not at all like Phil’s biggest headache since Stark. “I don’t even get to have a say in the operational planning!”

She looks genuinely distressed. Phil genuinely struggles to care.

“You’ve shown a complete disregard for the safety of your fellow agents on team operations. That’s why you were kept out of the field in the first place,” Phil retorts. He checks his watch.

“If they can’t take care of themselves, what are they doing out there in the first place?” Bela mutters.

Phil tries not to show a sudden spike of interest. “Relying on their team for support?” he says innocently.

“I can’t be worrying about other people when I’m trying to the job  _ you _ wanted done!” Bela argues, the same as she had two months ago when the latest arrangements were made. Phil doesn’t know if she actually thinks something will change if she keep whining, or if she’s playing a long game. Maybe railing against authority has worked for her in the past; maybe she’s aiming of someone’s attention in particular.

Might as well give her some rope and see if she tries to scale the building with it.

“What are you asking?”

“Make me a Specialist,” Bela pitches, face alight with excitement. “Send me out alone, like I was before. You know I can handle myself when I’m not burdened with other people, that’s why you wanted me in the first place.”

“I wanted you because you kept stealing things SHIELD needed.”

“And you kept me out of prison so I could be useful,” Bela counters. She raises one eyebrow. “Am I of the most use, kept in this building?”

Phil holds her gaze for a long moment, just so she knows he’s not making this decision because she has been, admittedly, extremely annoying. “If I get you into the training program, you’ll stop trying to look at classified information?”

Bela bites her lip and smiles ingenuously.

Phil sighs. “I guess it’s good practice for security, anyway. We’ll just have to keep you occupied.”

Bela’s smile is wide enough to brighten even a SHIELD interrogation room. “You won’t regret this, Agent Coulson.”

Phil smiles shortly. “Oh, I already do.” He leaves.

Back at the desk,  Kovács is shaking his head. “What?”

“I can’t even tell which of you is manipulating the other more,” Kovács chuckles.

Phil shrugs. “According to Fury, neither of us. Eight months to get an asset into the Specialist program? I should turn in my recruitment patch.”

Kovács snorts. “Give me a stronghold to infiltrate and a Tango to hit any day over your spy games. I don’t know how you do it.”

“I’ve been told I have a warped mind.”

“Dealing with folks like this, I’d say that’s an asset.”

Phil smiles. “You have no idea.”


	6. Jesse Turner

There’s a buzzing in his ears. It sounds like Marcus, grumbling at him to wake up before dawn touches the rocky mountaintops of Kuwait. As Phil shakes his head, the buzzing fades to a background hubbub, and Marcus’ voice- no, Nick’s voice- becomes more audible.

“-in there?”

“I’m here,” Phil says, or tries to. The world feels a bit strange. Usually, when he’s this disoriented, Phil has to either staunch blood flowing out of his body or pick himself up, slowly and painfully, off the ground. The absence of injury or concussion in this instance is almost unsettling.

He looks around. Nick is facing him, casually seated on the other side of a cast iron and glass bistro-style table. Indeed, when Phil turns his head, he see that they’re in the outside dining area of a D.C. restaurant favored by those members of SHIELD senior enough to spend their disposable income on fine dining.

Nick’s gaze is intent. “Gustave called me to say you’d been sitting out here and staring into space for an hour. Without a reservation. This is a problem because I like this place, I don’t want to make Gustave unhappy. And also because, as far as I know, you’re in Sydney, going after one of our most valuable recruits.”

He glowers. Phil can read concern and inquiry as well as the projected displeasure in his old friend’s expression, but he’s mostly just distracted because, actually, he thought he was in Australia, too.

“Jesse…?”

“Jesse Turner.” The ratio of emotions in Nick’s face shifts significantly toward concern. “This isn’t convincing me you’re alright upstairs.”

Phil shakes his head again. “I found him,” he recalls. “He said… no thank you.”

“...No _thank you?_ ” Nick repeats, menacingly.

“And he didn’t want me to remember where he was.” Phil remembers the young man’s face like an apologetic watercolor. “And, to make up for wiping my memory, he said he’d send me home.”

Nick snorts. “Pretty generous. So what do you think?”

Phil tilts his head.

“You’re my star recruiter. Do we make a new game plan, send someone else after him? Romanoff’s free. I wouldn’t mind sending your man Watson, he’s been showing a sneaky streak lately that I’d like to cultivate.” Nick eyes him intently, clearly looking for insight into his mental state as well as an answer to their latest puzzle.

Phil rubs his forehead. Maybe it’s the immense feeling of contentedness he woke up with, but for once, the knowledge of SHIELD’s cogs turning eternally isn’t giving him the urge to movemovemove on the new intel about Jesse Turner’s abilities or personality. Instead, he recalls the brief glimpse he retained of the boy, seeing softness in Jesse’s eyes and belonging in the way he stood in… wherever they had been.

“Boss? I think this one, we let go.”

Nick chews on his lip, reading Phil like the master spy that he is, and eventually nods. “Alright then,” he says, and it’s decided. “While we’re here, why don’t you buy me lunch?” he says, and Phil grimaces, and that’s decided, too.


End file.
